Excerpt from program notes for Mendelssohn's "St. Paul"

Felix’s grandfather Moses Mendelssohn was a famed enlightenment philosopher and rabbi. Although Moses frowned on religious conversion, half of his children and all of his grandchildren had converted to some form of Christianity by 1816. Felix considered himself an Anhänger (adherent/disciple) of the Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, and preferred a universalist approach to his own Lutheranism (seeing it as a natural progression from Judaism).

One of the most ecumenical composers of his time, he wrote for Lutheran, Huguenot, Catholic, and Anglican services in addition to the Hamburg New Israelite Temple and the Berlin Domchor (Psalm 100, in Hebrew). His first composition and choral conducting teacher was Carl Zelter, who programmed diverse Baroque music during Freitagsmusiken (Friday musicales) at the Singakademie. Zelter encouraged the young Felix to reconstruct Bach’s St. Matthew Passion from parts and sketches as a student project for the Singakademie. [March 2014]